Lemmon III, John Uhler “Jack”.

Lemmon III, John Uhler “Jack”, born 08-02-1925 in an elevator at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He was the only child of Mildred Burgess LaRue (born Noel) and John Uhler Lemmon, Jr., who was the president of a doughnut company. Lemmon attended John Ward Elementary School in Newton and The Rivers School in Weston, Massachusetts. He had stated that he knew he wanted to be an actor from the age of eight. Lemmon attended Phillips Academy (Class of 1943) and Harvard University (Class of 1947), where he lived in Adams House and was an active member of several Drama Clubs, becoming president of the Hasty Pudding Club  as well as a member of the Delphic Club for Gentleman, a final club at Harvard. After Harvard, Lemmon joined the Navy, receiving V-12 training and serving as an ensign. On being discharged, he took up acting professionally, working on radio, television and Broadway^. He studied acting under coach Uta Hagen. He also became enamored of the piano and learned to play it on his own. He could also play the harmonica, organ, and the double bass. During WW II, he served in the Naval Reserve and was the communications officer on the USS Lake Champlain.

Death and burial ground of Lemmon III, John Uhler “Jack”.

Before any take he would say, “It’s magic time.” Lemmon died of colon cancer and metastatic cancer of the bladder on 27-06-2001, age 76. He had been fighting the disease, very privately, for two years before his death.

  He was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California where he is buried near his friend and co-star, Walter Matthau, who died almost exactly one year before Lemmon. In typical Jack Lemmon wit, his gravestone simply reads “JACK LEMMON in”.

During World War II, Walter Matthau saw active service as a radioman-gunner in the U.S. Army Air Forces with the Eighth Air Force in the United Kingdom, crewing a Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber. He was with the same 453rd Bombardment Group as James “Jimmy” Stewart. While based in England at RAF Old Buckenham in Norfolk, he flew missions across to continental Europe during the Battle of the Bulge. He ended the war with the rank of Staff Sergeant, and returned home to America for demobilization at the war’s end intent on pursuing a career as an actor

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